Black Glow, White Snow
by Mysticknoll DxG FG
Summary: This is for Mell8's comp, a D/G/B story, focusing mainly on D/G. Rated M for possible mature languages/themes to be introduced in later chapters. Ginny can feel something in the forest at night. Something bad, wrong. But will she find help?
1. Chapter 1

The cold night air flowed against Ginny's pale skin, bringing the blood to the surface, making her skin pink with brown freckles. Her white night dress twirled around her feet. It was a loose night dress, rather shapeless, with a pink ribbon around the neck.

Ginny shivered slightly, her hands rubbing up and down her arms to warm herself up. She regretted not grabbing her dressing gown as well. She moved further onto the balcony, and leaned against the rail, looking out at the forest.

The breeze lifted up Ginny's bright red hair, whipping it across her pink freckled face. Ginny could feel it again. The glow at the centre of the forest. If she were asked about it, she wouldn't be able to explain it. It was a black glow, that she could feel, somehow, was there, in the centre of the forest. It seemed to be there more and more often lately.

Shivering once more, Ginny went back inside her dormitory, closed the glass doors to the balcony, the gold curtains hanging in front of them, and then the red curtains around her bed, before climbing onto the bed, pulling the thick red and gold blankets up to her chin, her head resting on the pillow and closing her eyes.

'Gin?' Her eyes opened, and she opened her curtains a bit, looking out to where the sound came from. Ari was in the bed next to hers, in a position mirroring hers, lying on her side, one hand pillowing her head further, the other holding the heavy red curtain open.

'Yeah Ari?' Ginny asked, feigning tiredness.

'Can you feel it again tonight?' Ari was the only one Ginny had told about the feeling at night. Ari was worried and had tried to convinve Ginny to tell the trio. Ginny, however, wanted to find out what it was first.

'No. I couldn't.' Ginny replied. Ari nodded sleepily, and let her heavy curtains fall back in place. Ginny pulled her hand back under the blankets, her own curtains falling back. Ginny tossed and turned in her bed that night, as usual. When she felt hot she threw the blankets off. When she grew cold, she pulled them back on. It continued until the sun peaked through the cracks in her curtains. With a sigh, Ginny got up and proceeded getting dressed on her bed.

She didn't have many clothes that were appropriate for school… To be perfectly honest, she had one outfit. A button up white blouse, loose on her thin body, and a black skirt that her mother had sewn up so that it wouldn't fall down, and which came to just below her knees.

All her other clothes were hand-me-downs from her brothers, which she definitely didn't wish to wear to class. Swinging her legs over her bed, Ginny stood up and opened her curtains. Ari was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that said 'Bite me'.

'Ready?' Ari asked, grinning, holding out her arm with a mock bow. Ginny grinned back and slapped Ari's arm away, heading down the stairs to the common room.

'Hey Ari, Gin.' Hermione was the only other person in the common room. It was only 6, and since breakfast didn't start until seven people were generally still asleep.

'Morning 'mione.' Ginny said, walking over to the table Hermione was sitting at. There was a pile of books on potions in front of her, as well as a rather long scroll filled with tiny cursive writing. Small enough to fit four lines worth of normal sized writing into a line, but not so small that an old teacher with thick glasses wouldn't be able to read and understand it.

'There can't be any essays set yet, even for sixth years!' Ginny said. It was, after all, only the second day back at school for her fifth year. The feeling had begun halfway through the last year, and she had been hoping it wouldn't continue again when she came back.

'Well, no.' Hermione admitted. 'But Snape did hint at a five-foot long essay on how to detect different poisons at the end of last year, and I'm sure Professor Slughorn will be the same.'

'You need to take a break.' Ginny said, worried about her friend, but Hermione just gave an absent nod, and continued writing. Ari sighed and held out her hand to Hermione.

'Come up to the Owlery with us?' She asked. Hermione cast a forlorn glance at her essay, but stood up anyway.

'Sure.' She said, and Ari grinned, grabbed her hand, and ran out of the room.

'I feel so replaced.' Ginny said, as the two waited at the portrait hole for her. Ari gave her a grin.

'Deary,' she said, 'you're my first, I could never replace you.' She grinned devilishly, and tugged Hermione out of the portrait hole. The three friends walked up to the Owlery, Ari clutching a letter in her hand.

'Have to inform the 'rents that I got here alright.' She said to Hermione, who nodded. Ari's parents were very paranoid, and worried about her constantly. They wouldn't have even let her come to Hogwarts if Dumbledore himself hadn't come to guarantee them of their daughters safety.

'You guys are so lucky you're only children.' Ginny said, sighing as she sat down on a relatively feather and feces-less patch of bench. Hermione and Ari shared a lot in common in ways of parenting. They were both muggle born and raised only children.

'Yeah, I s'pose.' Ari said. Her parents were rich, and she had a lot of things, in both magical and non-magical world that Ginny would never be able to have.

The owl Ari picked out was a tawny school owl. It dutifully held out its leg, and she attached the square envelope containing her message to her parents.

Ginny stepped out to the balcony, into the open air, leaning on the rail and looking out at the forest once more. A shiver ran down her spine as she felt it again. The glowing. She looked over to Ari, to see that her friend hadn't noticed, but saw Hermione looking at her oddly.

'What?' She asked defensively, with a shrug. Hermione shrugged her shoulders back, and the three friends headed down to breakfast, Ginny looking over her shoulder every now and then, feeling like someone was following her.


	2. Chapter 2

Ginny sat with Ari and Colin as usual. She just stared at the toast on her plate like it would bite her nose off. Ron seemed to notice this, and leaned across the table, looking into her brown eyes with his blue ones.

'Gin bug, eat up. Don't want you getting any thinner.' Ron himself was scoffing down bacon, eggs, and hash browns at a rate that made Ginny queasy.

'I'm not particularly hungry.' Ginny murmured, avoiding his gaze. Ron shrugged, as if to say he'd tried, and went back to talking to Harry. Ginny, not eating, found she could hear everything being said around her, including Ron as he chewed his food disgustingly with his mouth open.

'Were they there last night?' Hermione whispered. Ginny didn't really mean to listen in to the conversation that the trio was having across from her, but Ari and Colin were talking about hoping that Slughorn wouldn't be as hard on them as Snape had been, and Ginny somehow felt a connection to what the trio were talking about.

'No, I couldn't find them anywhere.' Harry replied, his green gaze looking right past Ginny's shoulder. For a second she thought she'd been staring at them, and they knew she was eaves dropping, but then she realised they were looking at the Slytherin table, across the hall. 'As far as I know, come seven, they just appeared there.'

'And you swear you didn't see them anywhere near the Owlery before that, right?' Hermione asked.

'Positive.' Harry muttered, coughing into his pumpkin juice slightly as his gaze moved slightly till he was looking at Ginny. He noticed the toast on her plate and frowned. 'You really should eat up.' He said, before standing up and walking out of the hall. Ron reached forward, taking one of the slices of toast from her plate, and hurried after him. Hermione, glaring after the two of them, made her apologies to Ari, Colin, and herself, before running over to Professor McGonagall who had just started handing out time tables at the top of the table.

'Great.' Ginny said, as she looked at her timetable. She had Divination to begin with, then Defense Against the Dark Arts with Snape, and a double History of Magic. 'Mondays,' she said, 'are the bane of my existance.' Ari and Colin agreed with her as they stuffed their bags quickly and headed up to the tower, where they were the first ones their.

Ginny sat in her usual chair at the back, with Ari. Colin was in Arithmancy. Ginny took out her textbook. They were going to begin with tea leaves, as a recap. How exciting. Ginny gazed out of the window. The feeling wasn't there now. She looked at Ari subtly under her lashes.

Ari was a good friend to Ginny. She supported her with everything. When Harry had been made to leave the Quidditch team last year, she had encouraged Ginny to try out for Seeker, instead of the Chaser position she had so obviously been pining for. Ginny knew that by begging her to tell the trio Ari was concerned about her, and more importantly about whatever it meant, that odd black glow feeling in the forest.

Ginny still wanted to find out herself what the glow was. Looking at Ari now, she knew that her friend would try to dissuade her from what she wanted to do. But she also knew that her own stubborness would end up having her do it no matter who it was begging her to tell the trio. Even if Harry Potter, the boy she'd had a crush on for so long, were to ask her to tell him what was up… She wouldn't. Ginny needed to know. She was the only one who got the feeling. She was the only one who could do anything about it.

Ginny drank her tea, the absolutely disgusting mixture managing to taste both sweet and bitter at the same time. She could tell by the gag Ari mimed that her was no better. They swapped cups when they were told, and began interpretting the shapes. Ari was absolutely horrible at interpretting the shapes in anything. Ginny, however, seemed to have a knack for finding shapes in things and linking them to whatever it was in her book it matched, and then coming up with a prediction that made sense, and turned out to be true.

Professor Trelawny applauded her every time she did such, and no death predictions were ever made on her. On an unfortunate Ravenclaw, however, there was looming death every day they had divination. Poor guy.

'You're going to meet a man.' Ginny said, looking into Ari's cup and recognising the most obvious shape immediately from the last time she interpretted Ari's tea leaves the year before. 'He is a gentleman, and you will relate him to the colour green. He will be tall, handsome, and just what you are looking for. You already know him, but when you first officially meet him, due to an unforeseen circumstance, love will blossom when you cut your finger.' Trelawny had been hovering over a table nearby, and instantly reached out for the cup, checking Ginny's predictions. It didn't spell doom and gloom, so she had to twist it around somehow.

'You will cut your finger on a rose, a symbol of love.' Trelawny said, completely ignoring the multitude of good vibrations from the cup. 'There will be a man who gives it to you, and who will be sweet enough to wipe the blood off for you. Beware of him, for he is the green thorns that pricked you to begin with.' Ari rolled her eyes at Ginny when Trelawny left, and started trying to distinguish shapes in Ginny's cup.

'This is no use!' Cried Ari, just giving Ginny the cup. 'All I see is blobs.' Ginny understood. Ginny was beginning to think that Ari might have a problem with her eyes. She seemed to have difficulty distinguishing shapes, letters, and pictures when they're close. Ginny decided she'd better ask Hermione what to do with that.

Ginny herself read her own tea leaves, as well as she'd read her friends, and made sure to write them down doom and gloom for Professor Trelawny. This is how her gloomy prediction read:

_You will climb high to try and achieve something, and end up falling off due to a man looming over you. The man will stalk you, try to bring you down. When innocently on a walk, the man will find you. And he will just bring you down farther than you've ever been before._

While her real prediction read:

_You will fall in an attempt to try something new, and a man will pick you up. The man will help you on your way, and help you achieve goals you never could have thought of._

Ginny didn't really care which prediction was actually correct. With a last flourish of her quill, she copied out both doom and gloom predictions onto two sets of parchment, handing one to Ari, wile rolling up the other as their own. The two of them handed that in and then hurried down the multitude of stairs to morning tea.

Ginny and Ari met up with Colin as the descended the marble staircase. Colin had just had a great lesson, as opposed to them. Ginny's too large and too old shoes made walking uncomfortable, but aside from the occasional trip she was used to it. Now was one of the times that they moved enough to cause her to trip.

She screamed as she tilted forwards, and her body was assaulted with a huge pain as she fell down the stairs, from more than halfway up them. There was the sound of feet hurrying across the floor, and Harry stood over her, picking her up and letting her lean against him as he looked to Hermione right behind him for assistance.

In the end, Ginny was in the Hospital Wing, being treated for two broken ribs, a sprained ankle and a broken one, and a mild concussion. She was supposed to stay there overnight, and Madame Pomfrey hustled Ari and Colin out when they tried to stay with her, telling them in her demanding voice that they needed to go to class.

Ginny drank all the potions, as horrible as some of them were, that she was given. Her bones were healed quickly, but her sprained ankle was harder, requiring a night and a days worth of potions to be rubbed into her ankle.

Madame Pomfrey was locked in her office, asleep, before curfew, so Ginny was bored for a while, and thought about going for a walk. She wasn't supposed to agitate her ankle, but she didn't really feel like reading through her Divination book, which was the only thing she had in the bag beside her bed.

Ginny made sure Madame Pomfrey was definitely asleep before slipping out of the Hospital Wing. There were still people around, but no one who saw her knew she was supposed to be in the Hospital Wing. They were mostly Hufflepuffs who didn't notice her much.

Ginny went outside, the doors still open for those few people who were by the lake, lazing around in the beginning of darkness.

She got the feeling again as soon as she was in the open air. Looking around, to make sure the anyone who'd tell her to go back to the Hospital Wing was not around, and continued forwards, heading towards the forest. Towards the feeling of the black glow.

Ginny's hands were to her sides, traling along the trees that she passed. She felt drawn towards the feeling of the black glow. She closed her eyes. One step, then the other. Simple. She walked forwards.

'Who is this?' A cold voice asked.

'Looks like our goose trap caught a dove.' Said a similar cold voice. And then Ginny saw, felt, and heard nothing.


End file.
